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As Europe's largest economy and most populous
nation, Germany remains a key member of the continent's economic,
political, and defense organizations. European power struggles
immersed Germany in two devastating World Wars in the first
half of the 20th century and left the country occupied by
the victorious Allied powers of the US, UK, France, and the
Soviet Union in 1945. With the advent of the Cold War, two
German states were formed in 1949: the western Federal Republic
of Germany (FRG) and the eastern German Democratic Republic
(GDR). The democratic FRG embedded itself in key Western economic
and security organizations, the EC, which became the EU, and
NATO, while the Communist GDR was on the front line of the
Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. The decline of the USSR and the end
of the Cold War allowed for German unification in 1990. Since
then, Germany has expended considerable funds to bring Eastern
productivity and wages up to Western standards. In January
1999, Germany and 10 other EU countries introduced a common
European exchange currency, the euro. |
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